I'm not sure you realize that comp.ai.philosophy is the
usenet newsgroup for the philosophy of AI. You should
look at it.
The philosophers you should read depends on what you're
interested in. But in this particular context, I'd very highly
recommend Thomas Nagel's essays What is it Like to be
a Bat, and Subjective and Objective, in his book Mortal
Questions.
I'd also recommend Kenneth Sayre's Cybernetics and
the Philosophy of Mind, but it's out of print and probably
accessible only via a good university library.
>Some synthesizer-philosophers, so that I don't have to read every one
of them,
>I don't have the time. I know a bit about Popper, Kuhn, Kant...
The only synthesizer-philosopher I know is Rand, but
unfortunately she wrote a load of crap. (Maybe it
needs translating to MIDI to sound good.)
>But if all that created by man is "artificial" then why do you use
words
>at all ?
Why not?
>See what I mean ?
No.
>"artificial" is just a way of saying "DUALITY".
Err, it's just one label for one side of a duality.
But I guess that's what you mean. So what?
>Do you view yourself as separate from the universe, Robin ?
Are you addressing me or the universe? I'd guess, just
one little bit of the universe. That's me. What's the
problem?
>How could you, since you live in it ?
Am I inseparable from my house?
>Where's your limit ? Where's the frontier between what you call you and
>what you call not you ?
It's vacationing in Florida. Where's your's?
>Do you believe in symbiotic links and altruism ?
Err, yes, so what?
>Do you believe in entropy increase or evolution ?
>As if one excludes the other ???
Who said that?
>Both are correct when you have the wider
>picture, and my wider picture means to me that anything can have its
utility.
Isn't that obvious?
Do you always assume that anyone who questions you
is stupid?
Hey, I just thought of something -- do you think I use
"artificial" pejoratively?
Robin